Jyskyjärvi
is the largest village in the eastern part of the bardic region. For
over a century at least, it was even bigger than Vuokkiniemi. According
to the 1905 census, Vuokkiniemi had 149 houses and 495 inhabitants;
the corresponding figures for Jyskyjärvi were 107 and 626. At
present, the area administered by the Jyskyjärvi village council
includes some 1,000 inhabitants, most of whom are Karelian.
Jyskyjärvi lies along a river at the confluence of the Tirkkakemijoki
and Kemijoki Rivers. It is a picturesque Karelian village built
in the traditional style, with the houses arranged in a narrow band
along
the riverbank with their ends facing the river. Today, the striking
features of the village include the suspension bridges over the
river. For decades the people in the village have made their living
from the forests.
Lönnrot was the first poetry collector to come to Jyskyjärvi,
visiting the village in 1835 on his sixth field trip. He recorded
eight poems there and observed that it was one of the easternmost
locations where one could still find epic poetry.
Jyskyjärvi
stands out among other villages in Viena not only for its riverside
landscape but also for the numerous decorative trees and well-tended
gardens in the yards of its houses. As a rule, Karelian villages
had no trees, with the exception of those growing in the graveyard.
Only when houses were somewhat detached from the village proper
did people plant spruce or mountain ash in the yard.
The
gardening tradition in Jyskyjärvi arose in the present century,
when, in the 1930s, an avid gardener by the name of Aleksandra Dobrinina
moved to the village to take up the position of director of the
hospital. She created a garden 4.5 hectares in size in which she
grew vegetables, berries, apples, and the like. She also brought
in decorative plants and got the villagers to compete to see who
had the most beautiful yard. As a result, the main street of the
village is now lush with poplar, maple, ash, silver willow and even
oak. Since Dobrinina's death, the village garden has gone to seed,
but traces of it can still be seen throughout the village.
Jyskyjärvi
What to see
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